Philip Chua Business Blog

Archive for September 9th, 2009

INVESTORS yesterday banked on Wall Street reopening with a bang after its closure on Monday for a public holiday and so pushed Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index up 2.1 per cent and the Straits Times Index up 16.96 points to 2,660.91.
It was the STI’s fourth consecutive rise, during which it has gained 90 points or 3.5 per cent. Also adding to confidence to buy was a firm opening for Europe and a 95-poin… more

(SINGAPORE) The financial crisis has triggered a big shake-up in the private banking industry in Asia, with some wealth managers having lost more than a quarter of their clients to rivals in the past year, according to a recent survey.
More significantly, wealth managers in the region expect demand for relationship managers (RMs) to fall as the industry adjusts to the damage wrought by the financi… more

(SINGAPORE) The result of yesterday’s tender for a plum condo plot at Dakota Crescent shows just why the government recently raised the ‘definite possibility’ that it will restart confirmed list land sales from next year.
A total of 13 bids were received, reflecting developers’ voracious appetite for mass-market and mid-tier private housing land.
The top bid from UOL Group was above market expecta… more

(SINGAPORE) The Monetary Authority of Singapore has published the first set of new rules that it plans to implement to change the way financial institutions here treat customers in response to the recent scandal over mis-selling in the industry.
The 19-page document released yesterday details MAS’s response to feedback it received on changes it proposed in March to regulations governing the sale o… more

THE Singapore market reversed early declines yesterday to finish higher for a fourth straight day, although the gains were somewhat limited.
The benchmark Straits Times Index (STI) fell to as low as 2,625.75 in morning trade, but it slowly recovered from its losses as sentiments across Asian equity markets were lifted by a combination of factors. These included a rise in Australian business confid… more

FOR many long-suffering shareholders of Chartered Semiconductor, the US$1.8 billion (S$2.6 billion) offer made by Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Investment Company (Atic) to buy the wafer foundry covers only a fraction of their investment costs.
And they find breaking up hard to do, after keeping faith with the loss-making company through the tumultuous decade that Chartered has endured since its… more